How to Hang Vintage Wallpaper : A Thorough DIY Guide from Hannah's Treasures

“Of all the jobs which you can perform in the house, none to our mind is as satisfactory as paperhanging, partly because the work is straight-forward and easy, and partly because there is much to show for your labours. If you have never done any paperhanging before there is no reason at all why you should not take up the work with a light heart and the knowledge that, by paying attention to a few details, your labours will be successful.”

For someone who has never done it before, the idea of hanging wallpaper in the home can be a daunting prospect. Over the decades, wallpaper has dropped behind in the race for the most popular wall treatment, with paint obviously in the lead. Even as wallpaper experiences cycles of resurgence in contemporary design trends, there can sometimes be a mystique surrounding vintage wallpaper, which can frighten some people away from what really is an accessible and rewarding task.

We often receive phone calls from people who are nervous about the quality of vintage wallpaper: is it fragile? is it too thin? will it disintegrate in my hands? The truth is that the vintage wallpaper patterns in the Hannah’s Treasures collection, all of which date from the 1930’s to 1970’s, are in excellent condition and of good quality. With proper care and instructions, vintage wallpaper can be hung easily. (Remember, in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, women often re-wallpapered their homes every couple of years and sometimes even seasonally.) Furthermore, because of the age of these vintage wallpapers, they possess a charm and history that you can’t find in new, contemporary patterns.

The problem with hanging vintage wallpaper is just that there’s not a lot of good instruction out there. When you look it up online, you can run across a lot of misleading or incorrect information. That’s why we have been working on writing our own wallpapering guide in the recent weeks.

After gathering helpful tips from vintage decorating books, trusted paperhangers, and our own experience, we’ve combined all of this information and have written a thorough and detailed instruction guide for how to hang vintage wallpaper. (You can find the PDF at the bottom of this post.)

The epigraph at the beginning of this post is actually excerpted from one of the books we consulted, which was printed in 1928. The same book also tells this story, which I find just delightful:

“We know a man whose business is connected with the Stock Exchange. He is a fortunate individual because his income runs into four figures. True, he works hard and sits for long hours at his desk, thinking in figures. Our reason for mentioning him here is this: he tells us that nothing pleases him more or makes him feel in better trim than to be able to re-paper a room and give the doors and windows a new coat of enamel. To him, it is all a splendid relaxation and, probably, it will be the same for many of our readers. Certainly, it will be a joy to many of us to see our work growing and to be able to say at the end, ‘I did it all.’”

There’s definitely pleasure and satisfaction to be found when you hang vintage wallpaper in your home, and so many of our customers have shared that experience. The room photos used in this post are courtesy of one of our customers who has successfully hung wallpaper throughout her entire home.

“Of all the jobs which you can perform in the house, none to our mind is as satisfactory as paperhanging, partly because the work is straight-forward and easy, and partly because there is much to show for your labours. If you have never done any paperhanging before there is no reason at all why you should not take up the work with a light heart and the knowledge that, by paying attention to a few details, your labours will be successful.”

For someone who has never done it before, the idea of hanging wallpaper in the home can be a daunting prospect. Over the decades, wallpaper has dropped behind in the race for the most popular wall treatment, with paint obviously in the lead. Even as wallpaper experiences cycles of resurgence in contemporary design trends, there can sometimes be a mystique surrounding vintage wallpaper, which can frighten some people away from what really is an accessible and rewarding task.